2022 Winter Olympics

The 2022 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XXIV Olympic Winter Games (French: Les XXIVèmes Jeux olympiques d'hiver;[1]Chinese: 第二十四届冬季奥林匹克运动会; pinyin: Dì Èrshísì Jiè Dōngjì Àolínpǐkè Yùndònghuì), and commonly known as Beijing 2022, is an international winter multi-sport event that is scheduled to take place from 4 to 20 February 2022, in Beijing and towns in the neighbouring Hebei province, China.[2]

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The bidding calendar was announced by the IOC in October 2012, with the application deadline set for 14 November 2013. The IOC Executive Board reviewed the bids from all applicant cities on 7 July 2014, and selected three cities, Oslo (Norway), Almaty (Kazakhstan) and Beijing (China) as the final candidates.

Several cities withdrew their applications during the bidding process, citing the high costs or the lack of local support for hosting the Games.[3] Oslo, which had been considered the clear frontrunner, withdrew after the Norwegian parliament rejected the application for funding of the games. Public reception to the application for funding had been highly negative due to cost concerns after the cost overruns of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, and especially revelations about a series of hospitality-related demands that had been reportedly made by the IOC. The demands notably included "diva-like demands for luxury treatment" for the IOC members themselves, such as special lanes on all roads only to be used by IOC members and a cocktail reception at the Royal Palace with drinks paid for by the royal family. Several commentators pointed out that such demands were unheard of in a western democracy; Slate described the IOC as a "notoriously ridiculous organization run by grifters and hereditary aristocrats."[4][5][6][7]

Beijing was selected as host city of the 2022 Winter Olympics after beating Almaty by four votes on 31 July 2015 at the 128thIOC Session in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Beijing Winter Olympics Village – newNew buildings will be built in another place at the Olympic Green, will not be the same village used in 2008. These buildings are already definitely housing since the end of 2008.

Zhangjiakou is a city in Hebei Province. Chongli District in Zhangjiakou city will stage most of the skiing events during the 2022 Winter Olympics. The ski resort earned over 1.54 billion yuan (US$237.77 million) in tourism during the 2015–16 snow season for a 31.6% growth over the previous season. In 2016, it was announced that Chongli received 2.185 million tourists, an increase of 30% from the previous season, during the first snow season after winning the Olympic bid. The snow season lasted for five months from November, during which Chongli has hosted 36 competitions and activities, such as Far East Cup and Children Skiing International Festival. A total of 23 skiing camps have also been set up, attracting the participation of 3,800 youths. All venue construction started in November 2016 and will be finished by the end of 2020 to enable the city to hold test events.[14]

In October 2016, the International Ski Federation (FIS) announced plans to begin sanctioning women's competitions in Nordic combined, with the objective of contesting the discipline at the Olympic level for the first time in Beijing.[19] In November 2017, a further three events were put forward by the FIS for possible Olympic inclusion: a ski jumping mixed team competition and men's and women's big air in freestyle skiing.[20]

At their May 2018 Congress at the Costa Navarino resort in Messenia, Greece, FIS submitted several additional events for consideration, including a proposal to make telemark skiing an Olympic discipline for the first time in Beijing, with proposed competitions to include the men's and women's parallel sprint and a mixed team parallel sprint. The Congress also approved to submit the aerials mixed team event and several new snowboarding events: the men and women's snowboard cross team event; a mixed team alpine parallel event; the men's and women's parallel special slalom; and a mixed team parallel special slalom event.[21] The individual parallel special slalom events were featured at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, but were dropped from the Olympic program in 2018 to make way for the snowboarding big air competitions.

In July 2018, the IOC announced the addition of seven new events: women's monobob; freestyle skiing big air (men and women); mixed team events for freestyle skiing aerials, ski jumping, and snowboard cross; and the mixed relay in short track speed skating. This means a total of 109 events will be held.

The official emblem "Winter Dream" (冬梦) was unveiled on 15 December 2017 at the Beijing National Aquatics Center. The emblem is a stylized rendition of the character "冬" (Winter) inspired by winter snow, with a ribbon motif. The top is meant to resemble a skater and the bottom is meant to resemble a skier. The emblem also features the Olympic colors (except black) and the Chinese flag colors. The emblem was designed by Lin Cunzhen who also created the Nanjing 2014 logo.[25]

In some countries, broadcast rights to the 2022 Winter Olympics are already agreed through existing long-term deals. In France and the United Kingdom, these are the first Games where Eurosport will be the main rightsholder; the BBC will sub-license a limited amount of coverage on free-to-air television, as part of a deal in which the BBC sold the pay-TV rights to the 2018 and 2020 Games to Eurosport.[26][27]

Critics questioned the Beijing bid, citing that the proposed outdoor venue sites do not have reliable snowfall in winter for snow sports. Concerns have been raised that snow may need to be transported to the venues at great cost and with uncertain environmental consequences.[48][49]

The environmental impact of hosting the games near Beijing has been questioned. Some of the proposed venues will be adjacent to the Beijing Songshan National Nature Reserve and part of the same mountain system, and the environmental impact on the nature reserve of construction, and artificially covering parts of the mountain with snow, is uncertain.[50][51] The Chinese government responded to these concerns by expanding the adjacent Beijing Songshan National Nature Reserve by 31% of its original size.[52]